Poetry? check. Cliché? check
The Independent's Robin Scott-Elliot offers a view from the sofa of the Six Nations finale.
The Six Nations has done its bit to entertain, although Saturday's elongated finale meant sitting through more crouch, touch, engage than is natural, unless you are Abbey Clancy. The strength of the tournament is that the rules can remain a mystery – it is comforting that the players don't really seem to know either – yet the rousing atmosphere that accompanies any England trip to be roundly abused by Celts or Gauls make it an event. To BBC Sport it is a Big Event so on Saturday they did what they always do to mark these occasions; poetry and cliché. Because it was a Really Big Event they combined the two.
"With Des Lynan having never returned the BBC library copy of Kipling, they came up with The Victor by CW Longenecker, who may not actually exist according to extensive research, or 10 minutes on Google. It consists of lines like "If you think you are beaten, you are", and was portentously delivered by a succession of Beeb pundits with serious faces and current players. Then it was into the build-up proper. "Now is the hour," said someone. "Big day for big men," suggested someone else. "Treat it like any other game," warned another."
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